Transcript

Well, good morning, church. If you have not met me yet, my name is Mike Laramee. I'm part of the preaching and teaching team here at Eastgate, and it is my pleasure to be here with you. You've noticed Pastor Gary's been absent from the pulpit. This is the third of four weeks that he's out.

He's actually on vacation now. The last couple weeks, we've been putting him to work. We've been making him do an awful lot of strategic level planning kind of things. And so he asked us to spell him in the pulpit for a little bit so he could concentrate a little bit more on that. But right now, he's out on the beach with and living his best life.

So today is the day of Pentecost. And if you are not familiar what Pentecost is, it's a church holiday that we celebrate now. It roots back into Jewish times. And so if you know a little bit about the Jewish history of our Christian faith, Easter happened on or around the feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover, and seven weeks of seven. Right.

49 days later was the Feast of Booths. Okay, I'm sorry, the Feast of Weeks. Excuse me, Feast of Weeks, which is called Shavuot in Hebrew. And that just so happened that that was the day that the Holy Spirit came down to those disciples in the upper room. And remember the story from early in Acts with the tongues of fire appeared over the disciples, and they went out from the upper room and they started preaching.

And 3,000 people came to faith that day. Well, that's how we. What we celebrate then is the birth of the church. So the church was born that day. We also celebrate the fact that the Holy Spirit came down on that day to inhabit us.

And so if you're from perhaps a more liturgical church background, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, maybe Lutheran or Episcopalian, you may be used to a church calendar that celebrates these days. A lot of times, those of us in more of the evangelical tradition, we don't tend to look at a lot of that kind of stuff, but it's important because it celebrates the Holy Spirit coming down. And this is a big deal in some of the more traditional countries now we celebrate the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And with the help of that spirit, I hope to bring you our 11th installment in our sermon series entitled Kingdom Living. And you've heard it from the stage every time that we think that this is the greatest sermon preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived.

And now, unfortunately for me, I have to follow that right. So no, it is my pleasure and my privilege to be here with you. Now, what we're going to talk about today is anxiety. Now anxiety is dominating the narrative today, right? I mean, according to the National Institute of mental health, 19.1% of US adults had an anxiety disorder in the last year.

Almost 20% of US adults have had anxiety in the last year. And this is like the disorder time, not just I'm feeling a little anxious from the NIH there, the prevalence is generally higher among women, about 23% than men, about 14%. But an estimated 31% of U.S. adults will experience some sort of anxiety disorder at some time in their lives. 2019 study by the CDC actually found that almost 16% of adults in the United States had taken prescription meds for anxiety last year.

So, yeah, wow, it's a problem, right? So now you may not be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder right now, but there might be stressors in your life that you might be anxious about. Have you lost a job recently or are you looking for a job, maybe interviewing for a new position or something? That's a stressor. It can cause anxiety.

Are there final exams coming up? Probably at this point, they're probably pretty much done. But college decisions, maybe financial aid kind of things, or some other academic stresses, Maybe summer school is a stressor for you, maybe causes some anxiety. How about relationship stresses? You know, marriage issues, dating problems, you know, friendship, relationships that are not really, you know, one on one or a two way street.

All that stuff can cause anxiety as well. Maybe you're waiting on a doctor's diagnosis or maybe some test or procedure's coming up and that's stressing you out, it's causing anxiety. Surely God does not intend for believers to live in this constant state of anxiety and worry. AJ Cronin is a author, physician, psychiatrist, and he cataloged his patients and their worries in this way. What he found was 40% of the things that his patients were worried about never happened.

40% never happened. 30% were things that happened in the past that you can't do anything about anyway. So that's already an overwhelming majority of things that you just can't control that people are worried about now. 12% were health issues. He found that 10% were these miscellaneous, petty problems that really didn't matter to anything.

And what he finally, when he finally totaled it on up, real legitimate problems that people were worried about took up about 8% of his patients. 8% kind of tells you that worry tends to be a big waste of time, right? But you know, Tim Keller in his book says worry is a form of idolatry. It's when we love so something like success or health or relationships more than God. That's disordered love.

That's love out of order. Now, Jesus, with the crowds that he's speaking to, is guiding us away from this life of anxiety and stress and worry. And he guides us toward a life of freedom. Freedom with their Father. In the Sermon on the Mount, after Jesus called his listeners to make God their master.

After he had done that, he then challenged them to not be anxious by freeing themselves from the worries of the world. See, we too, having made Jesus our Lord, we can free ourselves from those same kind of worries that entrap us. How can we do this? How can we. How can we be free of these worries?

Well, the text is going to give us three ways that we can be freed from worry when Jesus Christ is our Lord. So if you brought your Bible, go ahead and turn it to Matthew, chapter 6, starting in verse 25. It will also be on the screen if reading you're. If you want to do. If you want to cheat and you want to use the app, you can do that.

But I like to hold the Scripture. So would you read with me then Matthew, chapter 6, starting in verse 25. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air.

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat?

Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. May God bless the reading of his Word. Amen. So we're looking after having made Jesus, Lord, how we can free ourselves from the worries of the world?

Here's the first way. Recognize your value. Recognize your value right there in verse 25. Keep in mind it's been a week for us to look at the next space. But Jesus, it's only been a couple seconds since he said his last point, right?

And so when he says, therefore, you guys have been here in this church long enough to know whenever you see it, therefore you gotta ask, what's it there for? Absolutely. What's it there for? So this is what Pastor Stephen talked about last week. Look at Matthew 6:24.

What Jesus ends with in the previous passage is, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in money. So what Jesus is saying is, okay, having, therefore you have made God your master, you are a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. In our context, once you've made God the master, he then says, then don't be anxious. So this is not a command out of the thin air.

It's not just, hey, just don't be anxious. He said, no, no, no, no, you've made God your master. So therefore, let's not be anxious. So you can see that the first premise is very important. So if you are here within the sound of my voice and you have not yet made Jesus Christ the master of your life, well, you're missing out on the first step.

You're missing out on the first step. And if you are a Christian, you are a believer, you are a follower of Christ, then Jesus gives us a prescription for anxiety and anxiousness, okay? He says, therefore, you have to make master. You have to make God the master of your life first. Now, then he says, do not be anxious there in verse 25.

This is a command. This is an imperative command that he says. Now, the King James Version translates this give no thought, which I don't think is a great translation because it can kind of make our modern mind think. I'm not even going to think, you know, like I'm going to be completely, you know, brain dead or whatever. No, that's not what.

That's not what the scripture actually says. This word here for being anxious is the Greek word merimnao. Meromnao. Kind of like marinate, right? Kind of sounds similar to that.

It means that you. It's better translated as worry. Okay, do not be anxious or do not worry. It means to be troubled with your cares. It means to be stewing on these things, to just really be obsessed over it.

Now Jesus commands us not to be anxious three times. If Jesus said it three times, it's probably important, right? He said it three times in very short order. And he made that command there. So now I recognize that as I say, do not be anxious, you are already some of you getting anxious.

Okay, I get it. Okay. But if you think about it, the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus master sermon shows him raising the bar in every area. You all remember weeks ago when we were preaching through, you know, you've heard it said that you shall not kill. And what does Jesus do?

No, he raises the bar. He goes, no, no, no. If you call someone a fool or empty head, you've killed him in your heart, right? Raising the bar. Or he said, you've heard it said that you should not commit adultery, right?

He says, no, no, no, no. If you look at someone else with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. He's raising the bar. So now I can see, especially for some people who are really troubled by worry and anxiety, this is an anxiety that is not Jesus point. He says, don't worry.

But you know what, he gives us the prescription here shortly and we'll delve into that. Now let's define some of these terms because these are terms, as I said, you know, it's dominating the narrative, this idea of anxiety. But let's really talk about worry first. In the Bible, worry is that uneasy feeling, this agonizing over the future, you know, this wringing of hands, you know, oh, what am I going to do? And in the Bible, it's often root in a lack of trust in God's provision and his care.

Worry is self talk. You've heard said from the stage here before. Worry is self talk. Prayer is God talk. Worry is, what am I gonna do?

And it's this ruminating, this churning obsession with things that could happen in the future, some future possible happening. Now for today, let me talk about anxiety. Now, anxiety can be related, but. But it's also a natural part of life. See, anxiety helps us sometimes to prepare for challenges and react to future potential threats.

The National Institute of Health defines anxiety as apprehension, tension or uneasiness that stems from the anticipation of danger that can be internal or external. Now there's a physiological response to anxiety. It can be an increased heart rate or maybe higher blood pressure. Your pupils can dilate sometimes, you know, there's that feeling of tension. How Many of y' all have ever heard of white Coat syndrome.

Yeah, that's me, okay? Because every time I go into the doctor, I'm playing with my future job, right? They go, oh, you know, you got higher blood pressure right Now I'm like, yeah, I was fine in the truck and I walked in here and now I got high blood pressure. So, you know, yeah, certainly there are physical manifestations of anxiety. And so to be clear, when we're talking about this term, we're not talking about the clinical anxiety diagnosis, we're talking about worry and this agonizing.

We're talking about anxiousness. So when I throw those words out, we're talking about worry. So you might hear me say anxiety. I'm not talking about the clinical one. So don't start beating me up in the lobby later on saying, hey, I'm on anxiety medicine, okay?

That's legit. I get it. You know, now as we think about that, though, we worry about things that we can't control many times. And Jesus very clearly says not to do it. So when I am worrying and I'm churning over those things, I'm stepping into an area of sin, okay?

Worry is sin. It's incompatible with Christianity. Jesus clearly commands us not to do this. Martyn Lloyd Jones says that worry comes from disordered love. He says a similar thing to what Tim Keller said earlier, disordered love.

We're putting love out of priority over there. Now. What does Jesus say not to worry about? Well, right there in verse 25 says, don't worry about your life or food or body or clothing. And then he gives a really unusual prescription.

What does he say in verse 26? Look at the birds. Okay, Wait a minute. What? Look at the birds.

Okay, I'm worried about stuff and you're telling me to go bird watching. What is up with that? I don't look at the birds. Jesus, what are you saying? He says they don't sow or reap or gather into barns, right?

So they are not concerned with the daily activity. They don't think about it. They just go do it. Right? It's time to go gather seeds and, oh, it's time to build my nest.

And it's time to sing on a branch and attract a mate or whatever, right? That's what birds do, right? They just do what they do, okay? But they don't make plans about it. They're birds.

Their brains are like, what, this big, right? So they don't make plans about it, okay? And Jesus says, your Father feeds them. Now, he doesn't say your father actually delivers. Here's your Uber eats for seeds for this bird, right?

No, they don't do that. He says, I've got seeds all over the world. I provided for you, now go out and get them. So the birds don't reap or gather into barns, they gather food, they do their thing, they eat, they make it happen. He says, though, are you not of more value in verse 26?

That's the key right there. Look at the birds, but look at them as an object lesson. This doesn't mean stare at the birds. I mean, if you want to be a bird watcher, go be a bird watcher. I'm sure it's a, it's an activity, okay?

But if you want to do that, great, okay. But the object lesson is the most important part in that. Are you not of more value than the birds? Right? And more value.

This is an interesting concept in the first century. The word that's translated value here actually has this connotation of something that you carry along with you. Think about that. Things that we value are things that we put in our pockets. Okay?

So men, most of us probably have some form of a wallet or something where you have your IDs or IDs, you know, credit cards. And if you're, if you're not, you know, if you're my age, you're carrying some cash around. Gen Z's and millennials, cash is something that old people used to put in their wallet. Okay? It's like, okay, and ladies, you all, alright, you've got the wallet and then there's a whole bunch of stuff in your all's purses that I don't even know what is in there.

I mean, there's just all kinds of mystery and stuff in there, right? But it's obviously something that you value. And some of you, I see you are carrying, man, you're carrying a rucksack around. I mean, you got a lot of stuff that you're valuing, but Jesus is pointing this out that you are of value. That word you in the Greek is singular.

When he says you are a value, he says you are of value. You are a value. You, you are of value. A very individual thing. He's calling you out and saying you have value.

This is critically important. Dr. Kurt Thompson, who's a Christian psychologist, said, I become what I pay attention to. I become what I pay attention to. That which you spend time ruminating over, that you digest, that you think about.

That's what you become. This means that if you really Want to rewire your neural pathways from anxiety and worry towards freedom? We need to realize just how much God values you, you and me. See, all of us are created with dignity and tremendous worth. Genesis 1:27 says so.

God created man in his own image. In the image of God. He created him. Male and female. He created them.

You are made in the image and likeness of God. That gives you tremendous value. You have never met someone, you have never seen someone walking by or driving by that is not made in the image and likeness of God. This doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or not. All human beings have tremendous dignity and worth.

We're made in the image and likeness of God. We are the only ones in creation that are made that way. Now, a lot of you all have your fur babies and all that kind of stuff, and, you know, some of y' all take it a little, you know, a little far, okay? They are not made in the image and likeness of God. As much as you might like your cat or dog or whatever it is that you.

You got at home. Some of you have snakes. I mean, you know, they are not made in the image and likeness of God, but you are. You are made in the image and likeness of God, and that gives you tremendous value, especially if you are a Christian. You are called apart to be special.

You've been set apart. First Peter, chapter two says this. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And my favorite part of this, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. You are God's special possession.

You have tremendous value.

One of the reasons why we have that tremendous value is because we are uniquely loved by God. One of my favorite passages of scripture, my favorite verses, Romans 5, 8. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners. Christ died for us.

You are of tremendous dignity and value because Jesus died for you. You know, I was thinking through. I was. My wife and I were spending time yesterday. We actually drove all the way down to the beach yesterday and drove all the way back.

That's what we do. We go for a couple hours and, you know, so we spend more time in the. In the truck than we do on the beach, but that's what we do. I was sitting there, and she was playing in the water, and I was sitting on my chair and. And I was just kind of.

I was preaching this sermon in my head. I didn't have any of my materials. I was just. I was Thinking on it and stuff like that. And I thought, y' all have probably seen that movie.

Saving Private Ryan came out about 20 years, so there's no spoiler alerts here, you know, so I'm not going to spoil anything. But if you remember that movie, and I'm not going. I'm not talking about all the combat and the gore and stuff like that, but the beginning and the end of the movie has the scene of the old man in the Normandy battlefield cemetery, right? And he's walking among all these crosses, and you can see that he is thinking on those people that he served with who paid the ultimate price. And you can.

At the very end of the movie, you really get the sense that he's trying to think about all of those men who gave up their lives so he could be there today. And he was there with his wife and his kids and his grandkids, right? And he was thinking through the price that was paid. And you gotta think, he has to understand he had value. He had value.

Even, you know, Tom Hanks character said, earn this, earn this. You have tremendous value. Remember the parable of the 99 sheep that Jesus talked through, Right? He illustrates this best. You know, he says, which one of you, you know, if you lost one of your sheep, you know, you leave the 99 and then you'd go and.

And find that one sheep. And there's a bit of hyperbole in this parable, right? Can you imagine a shepherd coming back? You know, I would be kind of ticked off, right? Because, okay, I gotta leave the 99 and go find this one that's wandered off, right?

But what in Jesus story, what does he do? He says, hey, have a party with me, right? Celebrate with me. I found this lost sheep, right? I'm not sure that's how I would have responded, but I'm not Jesus, okay?

He says, hey, celebrate with me. But the key to that parable is in Luke 15:7, when he says, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. You realize that when you called on the name of Jesus, there was a party in heaven. If you call on the name of Jesus this morning, there will be a party in heaven. They will be celebrating you.

You have tremendous value. Many of you struggle with this idea. You struggle with seeing your own value. Maybe you've been sinned against. You know, someone has used or abused you.

Maybe this has led to some feelings of inadequacy and perhaps shame. Some of you Might have some deep psychological trauma, wounds from your past, and this is causing some habitual anxiety. Your path to healing starts with the Savior. Just as we said, make him your Master. It starts with the Savior.

Recognize that you are a child of the King. You have tremendous value. If you know and love Jesus, your worth is limitless. So much that he died for you and for me. If you don't know him, would you trust him today?

And he'll lift you up, knowing your value. That's the first one. Let's look at the second one. Trust your Father. Trust your Father.

We're in verses 27 through 32. And in verse 27, Jesus says, which one of you can add a single hour to your life, knowing full well no one can do that. And actually, if you go back to the original language, it's actually pointing towards qubits, which is a length measurement. So the original thought, and you might see this in your translation, who could add a qubit to your height? Okay.

No one can do that. I'm actually shrinking. I'm starting to get older, you know? Yeah. So I still think I'm as tall as I was when I was in high school, but I know I'm not.

So every time I go to the doctor, yeah, I'm this tall, you know? But. Yeah, we can't add a single hour. But it became, figuratively speaking, this idea of adding to your life. We can't do that.

CS Lewis touched on this really well, and he said, worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy. If you're worrying, you know, let tomorrow take care of tomorrow, because I'm just going to ruin today worrying about tomorrow. Today's got enough to go on. Jesus in verse 28, says, Consider the lilies.

This is the next command he gives us. Consider. And this is not just. Hmm. This is more of a really deep observation.

Study the lilies. Okay. He had us go bird watching before. Now I'm gonna go sit out in the field of flowers and look at flowers. Okay, again, this is not me.

You know, this is probably not an example I would have used, but I'm not Jesus, because that's not how I do. He says they don't toil or spin. But even Solomon, the great King Solomon was, who was rich beyond measure, the richest king in the history of Israel in all his glory, was not as beautiful as the flowers. He says, o you of little Faith, in verse 30. O you of little faith.

This is where we get the idea of trusting the Father Here in our second point, O you of little faith man, we're trusting too little. We lack confidence. The great theologian Jonathan Edwards said that faith consists in trusting in Christ. Faith is trusting in Christ. See, faith the size of a mustard seed, according to Jesus, is all we need.

Faith is nothing less than trusting in God's mercy as promised by Jesus. And we're going to trust in him. And all of the provision and all of those things that needed to be added come from trusting in him. And then Jesus comes back to the theme that we touched on in the first verse. What are we going to eat?

What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear? When Jesus says, look at the birds and look at the flowers, he's having us looking at things that don't concern themselves with those things. They're already good to go, right? He knows how the world works.

He knows that birds are going to spend the majority of their time gathering food and building up their nests and doing those things we talked about in the first point. They're going to spend most of their time doing that. But again, they're not making plans, right? They're not thinking about, okay, today's schedule is. No, they just go fly around and go get food.

They do their thing. They go about their business. Think also in the first century here how important food and clothing would be to them, okay? Most of the hearers of Jesus probably suffered from some form of food insecurity, all right? Many of them probably didn't know where their next meal was coming from unless they went and fished it out of the sea or they went and dug it up out of the ground.

They didn't know. They didn't have pantries full of food or, you know, they didn't say, hmm, am I gonna go to Bojangles or am I gonna go to Taco Bell after church? You know? No, they are, where's my next meal coming from? If you've ever been to the Third World, you know, if you've been on a mission trip, say, to Guatemala or the Dominican Republic or, you know, Uganda, I've been to Uganda, and many of us have been there.

You can see this, right? We would go to one of these outlying villages and we'd visit. And we, the Mozungos, the white people, would come in and attract great attention. They'd feed us, right? And all the Americans, all the people on the mission team would go up and get their plate and they would, you know, they'd just get a little bit because, you know, we're all watching Our waistlines.

And we know that dinner's coming later on in a few hours, so we don't eat a whole lot. The Ugandans would pile their piles full. Why? They don't know when their next meal is coming, so they're going to eat now. So food insecurity is a real thing.

The real thing to the people of Jesus Day. What about clothing? Okay. Many people that Jesus is talking to have a cloak and a tunic. That's all they got.

Right. Many of them are sleeping outside. That's their tent, that's their blanket, that's everything. That's their shelter. Right.

So they're not like us where we're in heated and air conditioned comfort. You know, 90% of the time we're under shelter, we're not getting rained on and the wind blown and all that kind of stuff. Unless we want to shoot, you know, here in North Carolina in a couple months or I'm sorry, not a couple weeks. Nobody's going to want to go outside. Right.

We're all going to be sheltered up under the air conditioning. Yeah. So clothing is not nearly as big of a deal to us as it would have been to them. But you know, food, drink and clothing, that's the trinity of cares, according to John Stott. You know, you look at advertisements today, how much stuff is being advertised for those very things?

If you took out advertisements for food, drink and clothing, there wouldn't be much left. There'd be probably car advertisements and that's about it. You know, I mean, that is something we're still concerned with.

See, the Gentiles seek after all these things is what he says. And the Father knows you need them. So you don't have to concern yourself, you don't have to worry about it. Okay, so we shouldn't be worried about these things. But there's another ditch here.

Okay, so there's the ditch of let's not be worried and obsessed with it. But over here there's another ditch and that could be. Okay, God's got this. So I'm going to sit back and do nothing. Well, that's not right either.

Okay? I've heard this before in Christian circles. God's got this. So I'm not going to do anything. You know, 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 says, if anyone's not willing to work, let them not eat.

Right? So we still, God's not against plans and energy and these kind of things. So there's a tension there to be managed. Right. See, Christians are not exempt from earning their own living being Responsible for others, parents, right?

Or experiencing trouble. All that stuff is true. There's a tension to be managed here. But God's message throughout all scriptures that he is trusting, trustworthy. Trustworthy is God.

Moses in the Torah in Numbers 23 says this. God is not human. That he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill rhetorical questions we know the answers to that Jesus is trustworthy.

The Father is trustworthy. And Isaiah echoes this in a different way. In Isaiah 26, he says, Trust in the Lord forever. For the Lord God is an everlasting rock. We can anchor to that rock.

He is trustworthy. Jesus in the book of Luke reminds us, he says, fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. God wants to give you all these things. He is trustworthy. He can do this.

Stephen touched on the idea last week of the manna in the desert. And in Exodus 16, you remember the story. You remember that the Israelites had nothing, and so God provided the manna in the desert, right? And so there was provision from heaven. Let's think about this in a little bit deeper manner.

How much manna were the Israelites asked to gather? A day's worth. A day's worth. Now, whether you ate a lot or a little, it was a day's worth for you. What happened if they gathered more than a day's worth?

Like the idea that, okay, I'm going to save this for a midnight snack or I'm going to have breakfast already done in the morning. Well, it spoiled and it rotted. Except on the day of the Sabbath. God was trying to teach the Israelites to rely on his provision.

They had enough. Whether they wanted a little or a lot. And don't miss the other part of that. They still had to gather, right? God didn't show up again with Uber Eats, and here's your bucket of manna for the day.

He didn't do that. They still had to go out and gather it up. So there's still work involved. Where's your trust? Are you trusting in your stuff?

Are you trusting in worldly things? You know, there's 16 seasons of the TV show Hoarders. 16 seasons. Each season's got probably 20 episodes. That's an awful lot of episodes to have the same episode over and over and over again, right?

Where people are just trusting in their stuff and can't let it go. How about your financial security? Do you have more Trust in your 401k or retirement plan than in the Lord. Let's live life with an eternal perspective. Let's look at that.

Here's the third one. Let's seek his kingdom. How can we live this life of freedom? Seek his kingdom. Look, in verse 33, it says, Seek first.

This is the last of Jesus commands. He says to seek. This is not like hide and go seek like we used to play as children, you know, running around and going, ah, I see you. This means to actively seek with the mind and to investigate, right, to inquire into, to strive at. And he says, seek first.

This is of first priority. We're to seek his kingdom as our first priority. This is the first thing that we need to do. And in verse 33, he says, Seek the kingdom of God. Okay, this is not to be confused with a castle and a royal kingdom and lines of boundary and those kind of things.

But biblically, the kingdom of God is the right authority for God to rule. The right or authority. His kingdom is. He's got the authority to rule over us. And in the New Testament, this refers to the reign of Jesus Christ as Messiah.

Kingdom of God is the reign of Jesus Christ. Now, when he speaks of this, he's not generally referring to the sovereignty of God or nature or history or any of these kind of things, but he's speaking specifically over the role of, of you and I that begins at salvation. He's speaking of the kingdom of God. He many times will say, the kingdom of heaven has come into this place because salvation has come. So he's equating the kingdom of God with salvation.

God's kingdom is Jesus Christ ruling over his people in total blessing. That is God's kingdom. That's the kingdom what we're looking for. We're to seek first this kingdom. And what that means is to desire that as of our first importance.

Spreading the rain of Jesus is our first importance. That's how we're seeking the kingdom. And we start with ourselves until every part of our life, our home, our marriage, our family, my personal morality, my professional life, my bank balance, all of that is joyfully submitted to him. Seek first the kingdom of God. Now Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

What is righteousness? What is righteousness? Well, Adam Purvis, who's preaching right now in Rocky Mountain, we were studying this week, he said something that was just gold, you know, this is what he said. He said his righteousness defined the state of him who is as he ought to be, the state of him who is as he ought to be. God gives us his righteousness in the form of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, blood on the cross was imputed to you so that you could be righteous. So no matter what you've done, God declares you righteous when you confess Jesus as your Savior. Now when he says seek his kingdom and righteousness, it's not really clear why Jesus breaks those two out. Okay? But since the kingdom is the same as salvation or that's what we're talking about, only those who have been born again have entered the kingdom.

His righteousness though is a little bit broader than that. Think about it. Since God himself is righteous, he wants that righteousness to extend into every area of human endeavor. Not just here in this room, not just here in this church or other churches around us or in this area, but everywhere that humanity touches. He wants his righteousness to be.

Now this does not mean that we return to this idea of Christendom or where we want non believers to act like Christians. That's not what I'm saying. Because we cannot expect non Christians to act in a Christian manner if they don't have the Holy Spirit to guide them. We cannot ask them to behave in a certain way in if they don't know the Lord. So what we are saying here, what Jesus is saying here, is when we seek his righteousness first.

He's describing this idea that we have an innate need for justice. We know we need righteousness. Think about parents, your children. One of the first protests that they say is it's not fair, right? It's not fair.

Kids know that they need righteousness. They need justice. Church. We should be so marked by righteousness that it spills over into the non Christian world. And those people that don't have it, want it because they see the results in us.

This of course implies an evangelistic mindset. We have to bring that righteousness to the outside world. Not by telling them how to behave, but by giving them Jesus Christ who will work on them and, and bring the righteousness into their lives. That's how we spread this righteousness. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

And what is the result? Jesus says in verse 33, all these things will be added to you. What things? Well, things we've been talking about. Food and drink and clothing.

But so much more than that, so much more. Remember, if God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8 says, and he says, all these things will be added unto you in this, unto you in verse 33. This is really interesting. I found this this is plural, where the first one was singular.

You have value. Now he's saying, all these things will be added to y' all, okay? That's what he's saying. All these things will be added to y' all, meaning it's a communal you. This implies that seeking the kingdom of God is to be done in community, is to be done together.

Part of the cure for anxiety is to live in community, sharing burdens. The early church was an example of this. You know, they held things in common and they met needs. But you know what? You can't meet other people's needs if you don't know them.

And you can't have your needs met if you're not willing to be vulnerable and say what your needs are. You need it. We need it. God wants to bless you. He wants to add all these things to you, but he wants it to y' all.

He wants to add it to y' all, okay? The last bit he talks about is sufficient for this day is its own trouble. Trouble is kind of an easy word there as we think about it. But trouble in the Greek here means malice and ill will and a desire to hurt, wickedness, depravity, and evil. He says that each day has got that in it.

If you've got to deal with that today, why worry about tomorrow? There's plenty. Tomorrow is what he says. Says, don't even worry about it. Jesus warns us to seek the kingdom first and not the world first.

John 2 says, don't love the world, nor the things it offers you. For when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from the world. And this world is fading away along with everything people crave.

But anyone that does what's pleasing to God will live forever. Remember what Stephen preached last week? Matthew 6:20. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Let's have things in an eternal perspective.

Seek the king, kingdom of God. You all remember the story of when Jesus came to the town of Bethany and went to the home of Mary and Martha. And many people have heard the story. We preached on it many times. And what happens, you know, especially in the Eastern culture, you know, Jesus.

You can imagine the entourage she's bringing, all his disciples, and all these people are following, going to this house. And now Martha starts doing what is important. In the Eastern culture, she's practicing hospitality. She starts getting in the kitchen and she's whipping up deviled eggs and she's, you know, getting some sweet tea and, you know, she's doing all that kind of stuff, right? She's making all her stuff.

And Mary, what does she do? She goes and sits down at the feet of Jesus. And Jesus starts teaching and all his disciples and all the people in the house start listening. And Martha's over there, you know, getting, getting the chips and salsa ready and doing all that kind of stuff, right? And she says, mary, help me, Jesus.

Why would you tell her to help me? She lives here too, right? It's her job, too. And what does he say? He says, martha, Mary's chosen the first priority.

She's chosen the first thing. You know what? We can be hospitable, but the first thing we need to do is seek the kingdom. You know, we don't have to feed him at 6 o' clock. You can feed him at 7:30.

We can get this done, right? It'll get done. It'll happen. Okay? It's not that what she was doing wasn't important important.

It certainly was important. It just wasn't of the first importance.

How are you doing with your spiritual disciplines? Fasting, prayer, meditation, scripture reading and study, Serving others. How about evangelism? These are just some of the Christian disciplines. There are others.

See, it's been my experience that it's very difficult to be consumed by worry and anxiousness if you are actively seeking his kingdom.

If you're actually working through some of these spiritual disciplines, it's hard to be consumed with worry. Now, Pastor Jonathan Minter right now is leading people through practicing the way. And right now they're going through a fasting intensive. If you want to be a part of that, talk to him. I'm sure we're going to roll out another one here in the coming months.

You know, Let me ask you a question. I asked you two weeks ago, this is my big diagnostic question. How's your prayer life? How you doing? Most people look at me and start kicking at the ground, right?

That's not so good. See, it's really hard to be consumed with worry when you've got an active prayer life, right? We have a prayer team that can help you. We got lots of people who'd love to pray with you. See, Jesus wants us to live a life free of anxiousness.

He's given us this guidance. He's given us the prescription on how to do this by living in close communion. With each other and with him. See, friends, Jesus wants us. He wants to take that anxiety away from us.

And he can do that when we recognize your value, when we trust our Father and we seek his kingdom. Let's pray. Father, I pray for this, this time, these people, our friends, my friends and myself. This can be a heavy message. And I recognize that there are times when I don't even practice what I preach.

What I prepared this week, I struggled with this week. I had a hard time sleeping this week thinking about things that I shouldn't have been worried about. And so I'm preaching to myself. And so, Father, I ask for. For your help.

I ask you to help me internalize the words that I delivered from you. Lord Jesus, help me to not worry and be anxious.

You know, the first step to dealing with worry and anxiousness is to have Jesus as our master. And if you're here today and you've never made Jesus your master, you can pray with me. Just pray along with me. Silently in your head or quietly along. Jesus, I recognize that I need you and I need you to break this life of worry and anxiety.

I need the freedom that comes from serving you. Would you forgive me of my sins? I invite you to be lord of my life.

Friends, if you prayed that, congratulations. There's a party being thrown in heaven right now. Perhaps, like many of you, there are Christians in the room that deal with anxiety and worry. And again, I'm not talking about the psychological medicated kind, but I'm talking about that worry that consumes us. Let me pray for you, too.

Lord Jesus, I lift that anxiety and worry and anxiousness and give it to you. Would you give me the freedom that you promise? Would you help me to see my value and trust you? Help me to seek your kingdom? Help me in these things.

Holy Spirit, on this day of Pentecost, Lord Jesus, we recognize that we can only do this with you. And so it's in your name that we pray. Amen.